Never could figure out what all the fuss was about. It wasn't like these things were *programmed* or anything like that (then I would be impressed). Effectively playing bumper-cars with glorified RC racers doesn't impress me.
I am forced to wonder how long it will take before only the most "popular" commercials are available. I'm sure it would start out with everyone getting to see only the commercials for things they are interested in but I fear that eventually only certain segments will provide the most cost-effective advertising (for instance, soda, fast food, cosmetics, and clothes). When that is identified I fear we will be back where we started, except now my TV that *I* paid for can railroad me into seeing whatever the advertisers want and use me as yet another captive audience.
Sounds too much like the movies these days to me. Remember how when this whole commercials before the movies thing got started it was *entertaining* commercials only and very few. Well, now we're up to six commercials and at least half of them are a complete yawn. Didn't drop the ticket prices, in fact they went up around here just like before.
So as far as I'm concerned they can keep all of their advertising "innovations".
What resolution do you need to digitize the raw input in order to get a clean demodulation? I would have thought it would be pretty high (at least 64 bits).
Also, along the same vein, has anyone looked into simply storing the input stream unaltered onto mass storage and then simply picking apart the bits that the user wants to view? This could make a truly ultimate TiVo-like unit once the speed got high enough (pick some times and record *ALL* channels). For now, I'd settle for a radio-TiVO (record all radio/ham stations at once).
I guess it was inevitable. Sooner or later someone would notice that you can do the patent law equivilent of cyber-squatting (patent something already invented but not patented by someone else) with patent law and rake in the big bucks. It will be interesting to see what the courts do with this now.
IANAL, but why would any organization need to seek approval from the US to go to the moon? To get into orbit, yeah, darn well better coordinate, but I don't think the US can really deny anyone with the means to journey from the earth and the moon.
Use the homebrewed projectors "Slashdot|Homebrewed LCD Projectors" instead of off-the-shelf and the price should become pretty reasonable ($1-$2K tops I would think).
Ode to Namebase/Google Watch
on
Mr Anti-Google
·
· Score: 1, Offtopic
Why should I listen to a kook whose site cannot take some slashdotting?
IMHO the reason Loki et al fail is strictly economics. The goal for Linux games manufacturers should be to get as many Windows users to buy the Linux equivilents as possible. The problem with the Loki games from what I was seeing in my local retailers was that they cost the same as the Windows versions. Why in the world would a Windows user endure the headaches (for them, not me) of installing Linux when it isn't making their gaming any cheaper from their perspective. I know that Loki was probably bound by license agreements and their own costs from making that possible but I think that was a good part of why the ports failed. Even when the Loki products became cheap (their $5-$10 now) they're still not flying off the shelves which indicates that they will need to be considerably cheaper for a *long* time before any significant coup in the gaming market will occur.
I'm not a physicist, but I would think that the majority of the energy from the explosion would not propel the spaceship but would be emitted in perpendicular directions, escecially as the blast grew in size (let's not forget the sudden G forces involved here). Wouldn't using the resulting hot gasses/radiation from a nuclear reactor provide a smoother, more efficient burn?
They *still* haven't fixed the multiple open mozilla bug, that is I can't have two Mozilla's use the same profile without doing the Create New Window thing. This is a pain for those of us who use multiple desktops in KDE/Gnome and would like to just punch the Mozilla icon to start up a new window. This is an old bug and has caused a good deal of debate over time (http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12269 8) and had a stinking patch since 0.96 if memory serves.
I *LIKE* Mozilla and I use it as my preferred browser but novice users are only confused by the whole profile notion and it is clearly not pleasant for (some) verterans too.
* I was going to put a link to the bug in my post but when I tested the link I get "Sorry, links to Bugzilla from Slashdot are disabled." Sounds like a preemptive strike to me.
A quote of a quote from the article:
"The new name draws upon the company's significant brand recognition in its SCO OpenServer and SCO UnixWare product lines."
Yeah, recognition of something unpleasant.
I had the misfortune of dealing with SCO Unixware several years ago and got my fill of periodic random kernel lockups, poor tools, and kernel panic dumps that would happily corrupt regular disk mounts. I thought that pig was dead. *sigh*
From the article:
"Their new optical disc will have a storage capacity four times larger than that of the DVD. It will be capable of recording up to 25 hours of television broadcasts."
Geez, now I can rec..., er, indefinitely time-shift a whole season of Babylon5 on a single disc? (tosses old DVD writer out the window).
It makes me wonder what we could do with the even lower power and lower weight computer/sensor technologies we have available now. Looks like the Voyagers are going to last past 2020 but with even lower power one might marvel at how long newer devices could last. That is assuming, of course, that we can ever straighten out conversions between english and metric units.
"More than two-thirds of CDs bought in the United States sell to consumers who rarely or never download music files from the Web, Forrester concludes."
What's the percentage from the general population that downloads music files from the web? If it's more than 15% I'd be amazed.
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Actually unwrapping small loops is a common compiler optimization when the bounds are known to be small. The branching operation takes a cycles and keeps the pipeline from being able to load the next instruction. Not to say that I think Sigma's in the clear - I can't really tell for sure but it looks bad for the Sig from where I sit.
I don't look at a computer as an experience - I look at it as a tool -- that is probably the root of the difference in our views. The issue I (and this is a personal issue) have is still pretty simple: I don't like to be locked into a single vendor as much as possible. Where some see Apple's hardware approach as easy to work with I see it as limiting my options. Whether the limitation is a good or bad thing is a matter of taste I suppose, but for my money I prefer the inexpensive choice I get from the x86 world for now. (Actually that's part of the reason I don't favor foreign cars in my shopping - the replacement parts are too costly more often then not.) Apple, and any computer manufacturer for that matter, should be as interested as possible to get other hardware vendors to be able to sell inexpensive upgrades. The availabilty of these other sources sells more computers in the long run.
As for OSX/M$, I don't see how being locked into hardware as well as software is any better than being locked into just software, regardless of how much more attractive the hw/sw is to me today, software is frequently cheaper to upgrade. Apple needs to make a living, so I can sympathise with their policies for now, but will a single-source hardware platform will be cheaper to the consumer than a multiple-source one, escpecially if the one source becomes a monopoly? I sure don't think so.
You've raised some good points and I will try to look harder at the Apple from that perspective, and I think what you are saying is probabaly consistent with the average consumer. Do I think Apple will stop making hardware? No, probably not. Will it be a windfall if they did? Nope, can't say I think that either all in all. But I think the market share for Intel based hardware is still far larger for the forseeable future than Apple based hardware so sometime (not today perhaps) why not try to tap that user base too?
IMO: If you're working on something that isn't terriby secret around the time of the interview ask the interviewee for his/her opinions about the solution to the problem. This gets you a little free (although dubious) advice and lets the interviewee know the sorts of challenges that they will face in the job.
If Apple wants one hardware standard that's fine, I can live with that. I just don't want to be restricted to only one hardware vendor. If I am opposed to Microsoft's approach to software (and I am) I have to be equally annoyed by any approach to hardware that locks out all competitors. So, I'm not advocating Linux for everyone (Linux on the desktop isn't nearly there yet) but by that same token I won't give OSX much of a chance until I can play with it without ponying up a couple of grand. Your milage may vary.
Like I said in the original posting there are a number of things I'm seeing from the reviews that I like but until I see some choice in hardware supplier I am going to stick with what provides me the most freedom (even if I hate the hardware architecture involved).
One benefit that probaly won't pan out.
on
CD Copy Stopper
·
· Score: 1
No More Fake IDs - The customer will use the
OpSecure technology as hardware token for online
authentication (e.g. entering a customer only online
zone)."
I don't know about anyone else but I can't stand software that makes me put the original back in the drive every time I want to use the thing (games somewhat excluded, of course).
Does it seem to anyone else that history may be repeating itself here?
The old NeXT operating system was very nice and had many of the same features that OSX does (not suprising since OSX, if memory servces, is based partially on NeXT). But NeXT didn't get out of the hardware market quickly enough and support hardware choice with enough earnest and IMO ended up falling as a result.
Being a die-hard Linux/Unix advocate I am starting to warm up to OSX from what I've been reading but I will absolutely not give it a second look until there are more vendors that are building hardware for it than just Apple. I use Unix/Linux partially for OS/hardware freedom of choice, I am not about to go to a platform that gives me little lattitude in either dimension!
Agreed! It is especially annoying for those of us that are into the movie scores (not the soundtracks). These are always at an inflated price (there are fewer of us who want the score versus those that want the various artist's music associated with the movie) so it indicates that the laws of supply and demand work in one direction; when it benefits the record industry.
Was anyone else a little miffed at the chart to the right of the Washington Post article which seemed to imply that increasing blank CD sales were the cause of the leveling off of CD sales? Could it *possibly* be that blank CD sales rose so much higher because blank CD's were being sold at commodity prices? Now a good number of those blanks may very well have been for pirating, but I'll bet a good number of them were for software backups, saving personal photos, and other legitimate uses.
Music CD's, OTOH, have remained at the same stinking price (for the most part) for the last 5 years. Want to sell more of something when the demand/market share ISN'T increasing? Do you want to actually slow piracy? Charge a reasonable amount for a product that's in LESS demand! These guys just can't seem to understand that the CD buying market itself is not the same as it was 25 years ago -- thers is just too much supply for the demand.
Slashdot Mirror
Now they should show *this* instead of BattleBots on Comedy Central.
Never could figure out what all the fuss was about. It wasn't like these things were *programmed* or anything like that (then I would be impressed). Effectively playing bumper-cars with glorified RC racers doesn't impress me.
Sounds too much like the movies these days to me. Remember how when this whole commercials before the movies thing got started it was *entertaining* commercials only and very few. Well, now we're up to six commercials and at least half of them are a complete yawn. Didn't drop the ticket prices, in fact they went up around here just like before.
So as far as I'm concerned they can keep all of their advertising "innovations".
Also, along the same vein, has anyone looked into simply storing the input stream unaltered onto mass storage and then simply picking apart the bits that the user wants to view? This could make a truly ultimate TiVo-like unit once the speed got high enough (pick some times and record *ALL* channels). For now, I'd settle for a radio-TiVO (record all radio/ham stations at once).
Not so anymore from what I've heard! I modded my kernel long ago so I don't know if these work but there are now RedHat RPMs:
Get 'em here
I guess it was inevitable. Sooner or later someone would notice that you can do the patent law equivilent of cyber-squatting (patent something already invented but not patented by someone else) with patent law and rake in the big bucks. It will be interesting to see what the courts do with this now.
IANAL, but why would any organization need to seek approval from the US to go to the moon? To get into orbit, yeah, darn well better coordinate, but I don't think the US can really deny anyone with the means to journey from the earth and the moon.
Use the homebrewed projectors "Slashdot|Homebrewed LCD Projectors" instead of off-the-shelf and the price should become pretty reasonable ($1-$2K tops I would think).
Why should I listen
to a kook whose site cannot
take some slashdotting?
IMHO the reason Loki et al fail is strictly economics. The goal for Linux games manufacturers should be to get as many Windows users to buy the Linux equivilents as possible. The problem with the Loki games from what I was seeing in my local retailers was that they cost the same as the Windows versions. Why in the world would a Windows user endure the headaches (for them, not me) of installing Linux when it isn't making their gaming any cheaper from their perspective. I know that Loki was probably bound by license agreements and their own costs from making that possible but I think that was a good part of why the ports failed. Even when the Loki products became cheap (their $5-$10 now) they're still not flying off the shelves which indicates that they will need to be considerably cheaper for a *long* time before any significant coup in the gaming market will occur.
I'm not a physicist, but I would think that the majority of the energy from the explosion would not propel the spaceship but would be emitted in perpendicular directions, escecially as the blast grew in size (let's not forget the sudden G forces involved here). Wouldn't using the resulting hot gasses/radiation from a nuclear reactor provide a smoother, more efficient burn?
I *LIKE* Mozilla and I use it as my preferred browser but novice users are only confused by the whole profile notion and it is clearly not pleasant for (some) verterans too.
* I was going to put a link to the bug in my post but when I tested the link I get "Sorry, links to Bugzilla from Slashdot are disabled." Sounds like a preemptive strike to me.
Yeah, recognition of something unpleasant.
I had the misfortune of dealing with SCO Unixware several years ago and got my fill of periodic random kernel lockups, poor tools, and kernel panic dumps that would happily corrupt regular disk mounts. I thought that pig was dead. *sigh*
What application of Perl most suprised/pleased/amused you when you discovered Perl's use in that role?
Geez, now I can rec..., er, indefinitely time-shift a whole season of Babylon5 on a single disc? (tosses old DVD writer out the window).
It makes me wonder what we could do with the even lower power and lower weight computer/sensor technologies we have available now. Looks like the Voyagers are going to last past 2020 but with even lower power one might marvel at how long newer devices could last. That is assuming, of course, that we can ever straighten out conversions between english and metric units.
What's the percentage from the general population that downloads music files from the web? If it's more than 15% I'd be amazed.
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Actually unwrapping small loops is a common compiler optimization when the bounds are known to be small. The branching operation takes a cycles and keeps the pipeline from being able to load the next instruction. Not to say that I think Sigma's in the clear - I can't really tell for sure but it looks bad for the Sig from where I sit.
As for OSX/M$, I don't see how being locked into hardware as well as software is any better than being locked into just software, regardless of how much more attractive the hw/sw is to me today, software is frequently cheaper to upgrade. Apple needs to make a living, so I can sympathise with their policies for now, but will a single-source hardware platform will be cheaper to the consumer than a multiple-source one, escpecially if the one source becomes a monopoly? I sure don't think so.
You've raised some good points and I will try to look harder at the Apple from that perspective, and I think what you are saying is probabaly consistent with the average consumer. Do I think Apple will stop making hardware? No, probably not. Will it be a windfall if they did? Nope, can't say I think that either all in all. But I think the market share for Intel based hardware is still far larger for the forseeable future than Apple based hardware so sometime (not today perhaps) why not try to tap that user base too?
IMO: If you're working on something that isn't terriby secret around the time of the interview ask the interviewee for his/her opinions about the solution to the problem. This gets you a little free (although dubious) advice and lets the interviewee know the sorts of challenges that they will face in the job.
Like I said in the original posting there are a number of things I'm seeing from the reviews that I like but until I see some choice in hardware supplier I am going to stick with what provides me the most freedom (even if I hate the hardware architecture involved).
I don't know about anyone else but I can't stand software that makes me put the original back in the drive every time I want to use the thing (games somewhat excluded, of course).
The old NeXT operating system was very nice and had many of the same features that OSX does (not suprising since OSX, if memory servces, is based partially on NeXT). But NeXT didn't get out of the hardware market quickly enough and support hardware choice with enough earnest and IMO ended up falling as a result.
Being a die-hard Linux/Unix advocate I am starting to warm up to OSX from what I've been reading but I will absolutely not give it a second look until there are more vendors that are building hardware for it than just Apple. I use Unix/Linux partially for OS/hardware freedom of choice, I am not about to go to a platform that gives me little lattitude in either dimension!
Agreed! It is especially annoying for those of us that are into the movie scores (not the soundtracks). These are always at an inflated price (there are fewer of us who want the score versus those that want the various artist's music associated with the movie) so it indicates that the laws of supply and demand work in one direction; when it benefits the record industry.
Was anyone else a little miffed at the chart to the right of the Washington Post article which seemed to imply that increasing blank CD sales were the cause of the leveling off of CD sales? Could it *possibly* be that blank CD sales rose so much higher because blank CD's were being sold at commodity prices? Now a good number of those blanks may very well have been for pirating, but I'll bet a good number of them were for software backups, saving personal photos, and other legitimate uses.
Music CD's, OTOH, have remained at the same stinking price (for the most part) for the last 5 years. Want to sell more of something when the demand/market share ISN'T increasing? Do you want to actually slow piracy? Charge a reasonable amount for a product that's in LESS demand! These guys just can't seem to understand that the CD buying market itself is not the same as it was 25 years ago -- thers is just too much supply for the demand.